Orange brings fortune for youth

A young man of Boalkhali upazila of Chattogram has turned around his fortunes by cultivating Maltese orange on local hill, reports UNB.

Alongside sweet Maltese orange, Lokman Azad, 30, is also farming China orange, Thai mango, dragon fruit, date and other fruits on his 90 decimals of land on the hill.

His initiative has encouraged many youths of the area to become self-employed by farming.

Lokman said he set up a poultry farm to earn his livelihood as he could not continue education after completing Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination. Later he went for the orange.

He bought a 90-decimal land in the hilly area and also started a dairy farm and cultivation of orange, lemon and other fruits, he said.

He said the upazila agriculture officer suggested to him that as Maltese orange is a lemon-type fruit and the land of the area is suitable for cultivating this type of fruit, he could benefit from the cultivation. Following his suggestion, Lokman started farming it in June 2017.

“First I planted 400 saplings. Later, I planted another 100 trees. I bought each grafting tree at Tk 120. I’ve invested a total of 2 million taka here. At present, the age of each tree is 3 years. I started selling the Maltese orange from the third year though I started getting fruit from the second year. There were 100-200 oranges from each tree though I was supposed to get 500 from each,” Lokman said.

“In the first year, I got 5 per cent fruits, 40 per cent in the second year and 50 per cent in the third year (running year). I expect, there’ll be 100 per cent production next year. Now, I seek government help so that I can cultivate Malta on a larger scale which will help the demand of the fruit across the country,” he added.

Several orchard owners of the area said the cultivated Malta of the area is sweet and juicy. For that the demand among the fruit sellers has increased. Malta from the area is being sold in different markets across the country.

Lokman’s initiative has already encouraged many youths in the area to follow suit, said locals.

Atik Ullah, Boalkhali upazila agriculture officer, told UNB that several farmers are cultivating Maltese orange in the upazila for the last 2-3 years. Among them, Lokman has been popular in the area.

“From the agriculture office, we always try to cooperate with the farmers. From the office, there was also an initiative for training on Maltese orange farming. Besides, saplings have been provided among farmers,” he said.

With a target of cultivating 1800kg of the orange, Lokman Azad was able to produce 1600kg of fruits last season. In the current season, the output is most likely to exceed the target.

Atik Ullah said they have a plan to help the fruit farmers transport and market their produces easily.

Besides, he said, the agriculture department will help them get the fair prices of Maltese orange.